Firewalk

Firewalk

Anne Logston

Published by Mundania Press

By Anne Logston

Shadow

Shadow Hunt

Shadow Dance

Dagger’s Edge

Dagger’s Point

Wild Blood

Greendaughter

Guardian’s Key

Exile

Firewalk

Waterdance

Firewalk

Copyright © 1997, 2013 by Anne Logston

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Cover Art © 2013 by Niki Browning

eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-975-2

Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-977-6

First Mundania Edition • October 2013

Published by:

Mundania Press

An Imprint of Celeritas Unlimited LLC

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To Mary, Mark and Michael, who Aunted me

Chapter One

Kayo intoned the eighth-level meditation chant as the assistant carefully untied the sash of Kayli’s robe, slowly sliding the coarse fabric down over her shoulders. The first seven chants, progressively deepening her concentration, had taken all morning as she’d knelt on the stone floor of the forge while the younger novices had readied the fire—very quietly, so as not to disturb her. She’d prepared for this ritual for days—a sparse but carefully balanced diet, meticulous cleansing of her body, careful examinations by her teachers to be certain no cut or scratch, no cough or itch or aching muscle might distract her at the critical moment One day, after Kayli’s Initiation, a firewalk would be a simple matter, not requiring elaborate ritual and careful concentration. But in the meantime all her training culminated in this moment, the final test of her Dedication and her discipline, and despite the importance of this ritual, neither fear nor doubt troubled her mind. Her training had been exhaustive, her preparation thorough. The Order of Inner Flame rarely lost a novice in the first firewalk; danger usually came later, when ease and success made Initiates careless. Fatally careless.

As she finished the eighth-level chant, Kayli slid her
thari
from its sheath on the stone before her. The most important step in her preparations for this moment had been the creation of the ceremonial dagger to be consecrated in her first firewalk. Kayli had forged dozens of blades before she’d completed one that suited her, folding and hammering the metal the prescribed ninety-nine times, quenching the hot steel in her collected tears, in her mouth, in her blood. She had carved the hilt from black horn inlaid with the symbols of the Flame and her Order in red-gold firestone. As yet the blade had no edge; when her
thari
was properly consecrated in her first firewalk, High Priestess Brisi would judge and bless it, and upon Kayli’s Initiation she would be allowed to sharpen it upon the temple’s blessed whetstone. The blade was perfectly forged and without flaw in its preparation—as was Kayli herself.

She stood, and the novices glided back from the forge, kneeling well back from the firepit. Once Kayli began the ninth-level chant, they were utterly forbidden to move, lest some twitch or sound break her concentration.

Kayli stepped to the edge of the forge, her
thari
held point up between her hands. The heat embraced her, rippling over her skin like water. The flames had mostly subsided, leaving only the hot coals, a few blue and orange tongues occasionally reaching upward. It seemed that they reached for her, hungry for her flesh.

Kayli resolutely banished that thought. Her mentors believed her ready for this step; far more important,
she
believed she was ready. She’d proved it to herself a thousand times in simpler tests, holding the hot coals in her hands and mouth or laying them on her eyelids, holding her arms outstretched through the forge flames. This was her last test as a novice of the Order; if she succeeded, she would be judged ready for her Initiation, and Kayli knew to the depths of her heart that she would succeed.

Kayli stared at the flames, knowing them her friend, and stepped forward—

—only to be seized from behind by gentle hands and pulled back. Her concentration collapsed, and with it her training and control; she could not stifle a single sob of frustration—so much preparation, all destroyed! By the time she turned, however, she had calmed herself. Vayavara’s own face was expressionless as always—
the Second Circle Priestess,
Kayli thought to herself,
had the most perfect control of her emotions that could ever be achieved
—but there was sympathy in the priestess’s eyes.

“Your father has come,” Vayavara told Kayli. “He would wait not a moment longer. I dared not risk that he might interrupt the ritual.”

Now Kayli had mastered herself, suppressing the surge of irrational anger Vayavara’s words had provoked. She’d been at the Order for most of her life, and her father had never set foot in the temple, although her home lay only a few hours’ ride away. Of all times for High Lord Elaasar to visit the Order, why, why the day when she was to take her first fire-walk?

She said none of this; she knew the cool Vayavara would have no sympathy for Kayli’s bout of self-pity. Respect and duty to, the family were as firm precepts in the Order as they were anywhere else in Bregondish society. If her father had come here, at this time or any other, he had good reason.

Silently Kayli retrieved her robe and the sheath for her
thari
and followed Vayavara from the forge.

The High Lord of Bregond seemed out of place in the comparative austerity of the Order’s simple waiting room. He rose as Kayli entered, but his smile was distracted.

“Daughter,” he said, taking her hands. His voice was heavy with relief. “I’m relieved to see you’re well. They stalled me so long I’d begun to worry.”

“I am well.” Kayli accepted a tray holding a pot of
cai
from one of the novices and poured two cups, offering one to her father. “I was preparing for my first firewalk. Priestess Vayavara was reluctant to disturb the ritual, but she said your business was urgent.”

“Indeed it is.” Momentarily Elaasar looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. “You must ready yourself to leave the Order immediately, daughter.”

A ripple troubled the surface of the
cai
in her cup, but Kayli remained impassive otherwise.

“Is there trouble at home?” she asked softly. “I heard nothing. Is Mother well? My sisters?”

“They’re all well. Fidaya’s preparing for her wedding with great joy.” Elaasar cleared his throat. “As I hope you will.”

Kayli was silent for a long moment. A thousand questions, a hundred thousand protests wrenched her mind momentarily into confusion. She was only the fifth-oldest daughter, and one of only two who had shown the gift of magic. Any important marriage of alliance would have been made with one of her older sisters yet unpromised. Lesser alliance marriages could surely wait for one of her younger sisters to come of marriageable age; in the meantime surely a betrothal would suffice.

Kayli had been admitted as a novice to the Order of the Inner Flame in her fourth summer, when she’d been tested for the affinity to fire and shown great promise. She had trained at the Order for the past thirteen years, dividing her time between the discipline and ritual of the temple and the elaborate dance of etiquette at court as befitted the daughter of a High Lord. Only last year had Brisi, the High Priestess of the temple, agreed that the strength of Kayli’s gift and her mastery of what she had been taught warranted sacrificing her rank at court in favor of Dedication to the Order. Her mother and father had agreed immediately, with the same pride Kayli had felt when her sister Kairi had been Dedicated to the Order of the Deep Waters four years earlier and later Initiated. At Kayli’s Dedication, her father had formally relinquished her to the temple, releasing her from her obligations at court.

All her years of preparation, the encouragement of her teachers, her ambitions within the Order—
why
could he possibly ask her to sacrifice what had become her whole life, and what possible marriage could require it?

But in the end, family was family, and duty was duty, and the answers to those questions did not really matter. At last she set her cup down quietly.

“Is there no alternative?” she asked evenly.

“I have thought of none.” Elaasar sipped his
cai,
shrugging. “When you asked to enter the Order, your mother and I had no reason to deny you. We had eight daughters, after all, and two of your older sisters were already betrothed to bring us good alliances. Jaenira’s marriage to Lord Alkap has doubled our
ikada
wool trade. Fidaya’s marriage to Lord Dannar will open new trade routes to the west. But there remains the north. And the east.”

Sarkond and Agrond. Once the Three Kingdoms had been one great country instead of three small, until eastern mercantile families had sent mercenary armies to drive the proud Bregondish plainsmen out of what was now Agrond to the east, until Sarkondish raiders had swept down from the northern steppes to carve their own territory out of the rocky hills to the north. In the generations since, Bregond had fought fiercely to hold the arid plains that were its only remaining territory. Agrond had made no further military push—it became too expensive to hire mercenaries to meet Bregondish troops when the stories spread that the invaders had lost three soldiers to each Bregondish warrior who fell—but Sarkondish raiders still swept down from the north, attacking not in force but in stealth, avoiding Bregondish patrols like ghosts, ravaging villages and departing as silently as they’d come.